“You see, Charlotte, your kindness—I shall never forget it. But—as you said—it is my affair. Mine and his.”
“And you are going to implore him, to beg him to keep silence?”
“Certainly not. There would be no difficulty. Whatever you ask him he answers, yes or no; then it is over. I have been frightened of him. But now I am not one little bit.”
“But we fear him for you, dear. You are so young and inexperienced, you have lived among such nice people, that you cannot realize what men can be—how they can take a brutal pleasure in insulting a woman whom her sex does not protect and rally round. This afternoon, for example, if I had not arrived, what would have happened?”
“I can’t think,” said Lucy gravely.
Something in her voice made Miss Bartlett repeat her question, intoning it more vigorously.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t arrived?”
“I can’t think,” said Lucy again.
“When he insulted you, how would you have replied?”
“I hadn’t time to think. You came.”
“Yes, but won’t you tell me now what you would have done?”
“I should have—” She checked herself, and broke the sentence off. She went up to the dripping window and strained her eyes into the darkness. She could not think what she would have done.
“Come away from the window, dear,” said Miss Bartlett. “You will be seen from the road.”